Classic Jalopy Blog

MBCNSW July 2023 Night Drive – Picton Road 0

MBCNSW July 2023 Night Drive – Picton Road

Last night was the monthly MBCNSW Night drive.   We didn’t do one in June, primarily because that week coincided with the week most of Sydney seemed to have the flu, so most people cancelled due to illness.      We were back again for July, doing a route from Engadine to Campbelltown via Picton Road. This drive was a bit of a combination of...

Selling my 1979 Mercedes 280SE at auction 0

Selling my 1979 Mercedes 280SE at auction

I recently sold my 1979 Mercedes 280SE at the Shannons May 2023 auction.    I’ve bought a couple of cars at auction, but never sold one before.   This article covers my experience selling the car, why I chose and auction and why I chose Shannons. Originally I started by trying to sell my 280SE privately.   However, I had the issue that I have a...

W124 Ignition tumbler 1

W124 Ignition tumbler

When I purchased my 300TE, I noticed two things that slightly concerned me.   The first was that I only had one key for the car.   The second was that the ignition barrel was slightly sticky.   There are key blanks available for Mercedes of this era at locksmiths, but the only key I had for the car was a copy.  I didn’t feel like a...

MBCNSW Amazing Rally 2023 1

MBCNSW Amazing Rally 2023

Today was my first ever observation rally.   After having gone to car events regularly for well over a decade, I had surprisingly never attended one.  The premise is that you and your navigator follow along a set of directions and get points for correctly deciphering the clues.    Today, the MBCNSW was running one, dubbed The Amazing Rally.    I thought it would be...

Guest Article: Ford BF MK2 Futura Wagon – 6 Month Update 0

Guest Article: Ford BF MK2 Futura Wagon – 6 Month Update

Note:  This is part two in a series by Nick Gruzevskis about owning a Ford BF MK2 Falcon Futura Wagon.   Part 1 is available here.   What could go wrong owning a 16-year-old Australian designed and manufactured vehicle? It’s now been close to six months since we picked up our 2007 Octane Metallic Ford BF MK2 Futura Wagon, affectionately known as ‘Lister of Smeg’, because...

MBCNSW June 2023 Cars and Coffee 0

MBCNSW June 2023 Cars and Coffee

This morning I attended the MBCNSW cars and coffee event in Silverwater.   It was held at the Armory café down by the water.    It is quite nice down there, and there is plenty of parking.    The venue the club used last time is probably nicer, but has a severe shortage of parking.  This forced the cars to triple park and making it...

Auto Brunch St Ives June 2023 1

Auto Brunch St Ives June 2023

This morning I attended the monthly Auto Brunch event at St Ives Showground.    This is easily the best cars and coffee event in Sydney, and even eclipses some of the formal shows.    Even though it was raining on and off all morning, turn out was excellent.    Probably almost as good as last month even with the bad weather. I took my...

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 4 – Final installation 2

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 4 – Final installation

I am currently in the process of installing a Becker Mexico Cassette in my 1977 Mercedes 450SLC.   In part one, I covered buying and testing the radio.  In part two, I covered upgrading the speakers, and in part three I covered the wiring.   This part will be all about actually installing everything. My first task was setting up the control button and microphone for...

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 3 – Wiring up the Becker 2

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 3 – Wiring up the Becker

I am currently in the process of installing a Becker Mexico Cassette in 1977 Mercedes 450SLC.   In the first part, I covered buying and testing the radio.   In the second part, I replaced all the speakers in the car.  In this part I am covering the removal of the old Pioneer CD player and cleaning up the wiring in the car. The challenge is...

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 2 – Upgrading the speakers 2

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 2 – Upgrading the speakers

I am currently upgrading the radio in my 1977 Mercedes 450SLC.    It currently has a Pioneer MP3/CD Player I had installed not long after I purchased the car in 2003.   The Pioneer came out of my old 300E and was installed in early 2002.   As well as the Pioneer CD player, the car also had Pioneer speakers.   These pre-dated my ownership of the...

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 1 – Preparing the radio 5

450SLC Becker Mexico Cassette install part 1 – Preparing the radio

Over the last 12 months or so, I have been focused on getting period correct Becker radios installed in my Classic Mercedes cars.    I had never experienced these radios until I purchased my one owner 560SEL back in 2020.   It was owning this car that made me realize how well they work in the car.   I’ve started to view them as part of...

MBCNSW May 2023 Night Drive – Mulgoa Road 0

MBCNSW May 2023 Night Drive – Mulgoa Road

The May night drive was a little bit different.   It turned out to be the farewell drive for one of our night drive regulars who is moving to Queensland.   Based on that, we had a good turn out of people along for the drive.    We also had a few others come along just to the starting point.   That is quite a good option...

National Motoring Heritage Day 2023 0

National Motoring Heritage Day 2023

National Motoring Heritage Day occurs every year on the last Sunday of May.   The goal is to try and encourage as many classic, vintage and veteran cars out as possible and display them at various shows and events.   One of the biggest is held in Berry, where they anticipate around 600 cars each year.   The Mercedes club normally attend this event and this year...

Auto Brunch St Ives May 2023 1

Auto Brunch St Ives May 2023

About a week and a half ago, I attended the May 2023 Auto Brunch event in St Ives.   This is my favorite Sydney cars and coffee event, and I hadn’t had a chance to attend this year.  Last time was November last year.   Even though it was threatening rain, it was still a great turn out.   This event always has a few nice surprises...

W124 Gullideckel wheels 0

W124 Gullideckel wheels

I recently bought an additional set of W124 Gullideckel wheels for my 300TE.   The wheels on my car look quite good, but the price was reasonable and its good to have a spare set.   I have lots of spare W126 wheels, but they use a different offset. I like how the factory wheels look on the wagon, so I have no plans to swap...

Longroof Long Lunch 0

Longroof Long Lunch

Today I attended a MBCNSW event dubbed the Longroof Long Lunch.    I wasn’t actually planning to attend a car club event today, but due to the torrential rain forecast for this weekend, I ended up with a free morning at the last minute.   Despite the weather forecast, all the torrential rain fell overnight, leaving both days quite nice. The premise of the event...

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